


Light My Heart And Light My Shadow

by pandoradeloeste



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast), The College Tapes (Podcast)
Genre: Coming Untouched, M/M, Missing Scene, Porn with Feelings, Semi-Public Sex, WILDLY undernegotiated, blowjob, idiots in love making bad decisions, so many feeings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandoradeloeste/pseuds/pandoradeloeste
Summary: This had been a bad, bad idea. The smart thing would be to drive back to Boston right now.He got as far as “Adam, I -” before Adam stepped in and kissed him. Caleb barely had enough time to thinkI should have seen this coming, and then his hand was in Adam’s hair and he was pulling Adam hard against him.Well. Nobody had ever accused Caleb of being particularly smart.
Relationships: Adam Hayes/Caleb Michaels
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Light My Heart And Light My Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> See that tag that says "wildly undernegotiated"? It's not a joke. Proceed accordingly.
> 
> Title is from "Take Me Back" from Black Friday.

The second he saw Adam’s stupid adorable face, Caleb knew he was fucked. 

He'd seen Adam since the breakup - not in person, obviously, but they were still close friends on Instagram, so Adam's new jacket or the fact that his hair had grown long enough for a proper ponytail weren't a surprise. But selfies couldn't capture the way his eyebrows quirked when he was holding back a snarky comment, or how his eyes lit up when he was excited. And it hadn't prepared Caleb for the affection-grief-longing that became harder to ignore the longer he was around Adam.

Before, he'd liked the way Adam's feelings would blend into his own. Tonight it felt like junior year of high school, sitting in Mr Collins's class and trying to block them out before they had a chance to settle into his chest and take over. If it weren’t for the existential dread that he was fairly sure was his own - Adam clearly had his shit together, the lucky bastard, _he_ had no use for fear or envy - he wouldn’t know where his own feelings stopped and Adam’s began.

It was almost a relief when time started skipping around and ghosts appeared in the bell tower, and for a second it felt like the stakeouts in front of Dr. Bright’s office, when everything - his ability, the atypical world, Adam - was new and full of potential. But too soon the adrenaline faded, and he was back where he started: exposed and raw - literally, he was sitting on a dryer with no shirt and sweatpants that barely covered his knees - making awkward small talk, and increasingly sure that there was no place for him in Adam’s life anymore.

He took a sip of his tea (citrus spice with honey, and for _fuck’s sake_ could he _stop_ speculating about what it meant that Adam still had his favorite tea in the apartment) and searched for a safe topic of conversation. “So. . .”

"So. . ."

“We were chased out of a spooky tower by a…time ghost?”

“Definitely atypical.” Adam grinned over the rim of the mug, excitement glowing through the prickling wistfulness he’d trailed into the laundry room. He was wearing the Shakespeare pajama bottoms again, and his hair was drying into flyaway curls. He looked so much like he had in high school, hiding in baggy hoodies and fascinated by all things atypical, that Caleb’s stupid heart clenched painfully and his fingers tightened around the mug to keep from grabbing at Adam by the “METAPHORS BE WITH YOU” shirt and pinning him up against the nearest wall. 

He cleared his throat and turned away to put his mug down on the dryer next to his keys and wallet. “Definitely.”

“Wait.” A flare of concern, and Adam moved closer to peer at Caleb’s side. “Caleb. Oh my god, _what happened?_ ”

“What?” Caleb followed Adam’s gaze to the scar. “Oh. That. Yeah, that was stupid. Quidditch.”

“With Alice?”

“Intramural league. Some guy sliced the side of my ribcage with a janky old broom.” Quidditch suddenly seemed far too juvenile to talk about with Adam. He’d lived in fucking _England_ while Caleb had never left the East Coast. He was spending spring break getting a real job, and Caleb didn’t even know what he wanted to do in seven months. “It was stupid. Got plenty of stitches, though.”

“When was this?” Adam leaned in to take a closer look. Caleb wasn’t sure if he could actually feel Adam’s breath ghosting over his stomach or if that was his imagination, but he was acutely aware that Adam was standing against his leg, his warmth bleeding through the ridiculously tight sweatpants (had they always been this tight?)

“Last. . .” He swallowed hard and tried again. “Last spring.” _Get a grip,_ he told himself. _I know it’s been a while since you got laid, but_ come on.

“That. Um. That makes sense.” Adam ran his fingertips over the scar. The touch shivered through him, and Caleb bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. “I thought I was going crazy not knowing all the scars on your body.” There were spots of color high on his cheeks, and Caleb realized that the feverish skin-hunger was at least partly coming from Adam. “Uh. Looks like it hurt.”

“It did,” Caleb said nonsensically, grasping at straws to stay grounded as Adam’s thumb rubbed slow, hypnotic circles over his ribs. “Mark was there, watching the game. He actually took me to the ER. Which sucked big time. Being in a hospital in a, um. An empath feedback loop.” 

_God,_ he was sick of trying to stay afloat while figuring out which emotions were his and which were Adam’s. On the other hand, desire was starting to drown out everything else, which could almost be restful, if it weren’t so fucking dangerous. Adam was moving on. _Had_ moved on. He didn’t need Caleb coming back into his life and stirring up old feelings. But he was so tired, and Adam felt _so good,_ and the last year of loneliness and hurt and lying awake missing him was catching up to Caleb in a rush.

Adam drew his hand back. Embarrassment started to leak in around the edges of the hunger, like a cold draft in a warm room. “Well, you still look really. . .uh. . .you look good. I mean. You’re fine. It - you - it still looks. . .” He swallowed audibly. His voice had gone rough and unsteady. “It still looks good. Yep. Good.” 

Caleb cleared his throat and tried to think through the prickles of want. “Thanks. You, uh. You too.”

Oh, this had been a bad, bad idea. The smart thing would be to stand up, get his clothes out of the dryer, and let them keep drying in the car while he drove back to Boston. 

Caleb slid off the dryer and took a deep breath. He got as far as “Adam, I -” before a spike of determination cut through the fog of desire, and Adam stepped in and kissed him. Caleb barely had enough time to think _I should have seen this coming_ and feel perversely relieved, before satisfaction-anticipation-need hit him like a piledriver, and then his hand was in Adam’s hair and he was pulling Adam hard against him. 

Well. Nobody had ever accused Caleb of being particularly smart.

Adam was groaning into his mouth, all grasping hands and force and teeth, scraping against Caleb’s split lip and vibrating blue-white and hot against him. Caleb responded without thinking, muscle memory guiding his hands and mouth. Habit had him reaching for the mindfulness exercises Dr. Bright had taught him, the ones he’d used for years to stay grounded during heated moments with Adam, before he stopped himself. Mindfulness was for people who had something to stay present for. All he had was a broken heart and a future in shambles. Fuck mindfulness, fuck staying yellow, or even green. He wanted to be obliterated in a tide of blue, _fast_ before Adam came to his senses and pulled away again.

Caleb didn’t realize he was moving until Adam’s back hit the wall next to the dryer. He pushed everything away - his anxiety, his sadness, his insecurity, even Adam’s hands sliding over his back - until all that was left was Adam’s hunger, flooding into him and drowning out every other emotion. He muffled a sigh of relief in Adam’s neck, feeling like he could breathe for the first time all night because finally, _finally_ -

“Yeah no _shit_ finally, meat-” The rest of the sentence was lost in a hitching gasp as Caleb bit down hard on Adam’s neck to shut him up. Pain sparked against pleasure, and Caleb couldn’t believe he’d forgotten how _fucking good_ those sharp, panting whines next to his ear sounded. He could have spent all night pulling those noises out of him.

He paused to pull the ridiculous shirt off Adam, and Adam got a hand in his hair and pulled his head to the side to mouth at his neck. Ordinarily it would have made Caleb melt, but other emotions (satisfaction, self-consciousness, confusion, affection) were starting to bleed into the hunger, and all he felt was buzzing pressure against his chest. He plucked Adam’s hands out of his hair and pinned them to the wall. 

Adam hissed and his eyes flew open. “ _Shit,_ Caleb. . .” and _there,_ there was the desire Caleb had been looking for, pure enough to give him space to breathe and think again, even as he shuddered and rocked against Adam.

The sensible thing to do - the _considerate_ thing - would have been to slow down and give them both time to think about what they were doing and whether they wanted to do it in a goddamn _laundry room._ He could practically hear Sadie facepalming 130 miles away. But if it meant going back to fighting back the tide of need, or losing the high of an uncomplicated emotion, Caleb wasn’t interested in being sensible or considerate. And judging by the hazy look in his eyes and the flush spreading down his chest, to say nothing of the tent in his pants, neither was Adam.

He let go of Adam’s hands to lift him onto the dryer. Adam gasped and grabbed Caleb’s shoulders, sending anticipation racing electric between them. Caleb let his mouth wander over Adam’s stomach as he unbuttoned the fly on his pants, and then Adam was crying out and digging his nails hard into him, and Caleb wished he had Sam’s ability so that he could come back later and live in this moment forever.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Adam whispered above him, breathy and slurred, burying a hand in his hair again. Caleb let the surge of _want_ wash through him, strong enough to buckle his knees and make him clutch at Adam. There would be scratches on his shoulders and Adam’s back and hips tomorrow. Right now Adam’s cock in his mouth felt like a homecoming, and there was a savage joy in listening to Adam, the English major who was always ready with a snarky quip or a ten-minute rant, go ragged and incoherent above him. 

And if the homecoming started to feel bittersweet, all the more reason to move faster, suck harder, dig deeper, do whatever he needed to stay lost in the shivering burn.

Too soon the tension unwound abruptly, and Adam’s hand in his hair clenched hard as he came apart in Caleb’s mouth. White noise and fire sweet enough to hurt crashed over Caleb, and it was pure blind luck that he didn’t choke as Adam dragged him over the edge.

For a long moment - a second, a year, time hadn’t caught up to him yet - there was nothing but the hum of the dryer and their harsh breaths. Caleb rested his head against Adam’s trembling thigh while he tried to catch his breath. The hand tangled in his hair relaxed and began carding gently through his hair, and Caleb couldn’t resist pushing into it a little. They’d made a mess of Adam’s pants, and probably the dryer, and definitely Caleb’s pants, but he couldn’t have cared less. Right now there was only mindless relief, and Caleb changed his mind: _this_ was the moment he wanted to live in forever.

Adam huffed a shaky laugh somewhere above him. “Caleb, I -”

The dryer buzzed, making them both jump. Caleb stood on shaky legs, and Adam’s hand fell out of his hair. Adam’s euphoria collapsed, and the peace that had come from an uncomplicated emotional landscape vanished. Caleb almost lost his balance as conflicting feelings rushed back in - affection, disappointment, confusion, gratitude, hope, embarrassment, regret. . .

_Oh._

Well. That was only fair. Nothing said “embarrassing, regrettable life choice” like letting yourself get jumped by your needy ex-boyfriend in a laundry room. Nothing except _being_ the asshole who was using their adorable, aggressively successful ex-boyfriend to get a fucked-up atypical high. 

His face was starting to go numb and he wasn’t sure what it looked like, but Adam’s face fell and the embarrassment and regret started to crowd out everything else. “Babe, please, sit down, we need to talk about this. . .”

Caleb couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t even feel anything other than the need to get out, right now, before Adam accused Caleb of using him, or attacking him, or anything else. He grabbed his clothes, balled them up with his keys and wallet, and managed to force out a broken “I’m so sorry” before running.

The slap of Adam’s disbelief and anger chased him out the door, and cold rain mingled with the hot tears on his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> RIP Sadie and Caitlin, who are going to be picking up the pieces tomorrow morning.


End file.
